Taking Discourse Seriously: Discursive Institutionalism and Post-structuralist Discourse Theory
| Author | Francisco Panizza,Romina Miorelli |
| Published date | 01 June 2013 |
| Date | 01 June 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00967.x |
| Subject Matter | Original Article |
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P O L I T I C A L S T U D I E S : 2 0 1 3 VO L 6 1 , 3 0 1 – 3 1 8
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00967.x
Taking Discourse Seriously: Discursive
Institutionalism and Post-structuralist
Discourse Theorypost_967301..318
Francisco Panizza
Romina Miorelli
London School of Economics and Political Science
University of Westminster
The article seeks to add to the growing contribution of discursive approaches to the study of political institutions by
analysing the possibilities for cross-fertilisation between discursive institutionalism and post-structuralist discourse
theory. Analysing Vivien Schmidt’s version of discursive institutionalism, it argues that Schmidt’s concept of discourse
results in a model of explanation of institutional change that overlooks questions about the relations between power,
politics and discourse. It further argues that while post-structural discourse theory has made important contributions
to the understanding of the discursive nature of social practices, it has so far failed fully to take on board the
institutional dimension of politics. It concludes that an integration of Schmidt’s insights on discursive institutionalism
with post-structuralist discourse theory allows a more rounded analysis of the political dimension of institutions and
of the institutional dimension of politics, as well as a better understanding of institutional change. To illustrate our
arguments we draw on our own research to analyse the relations between discourse and institutions in the 2002
presidential electoral campaign in Brazil and in Argentina’s poverty reduction policies in the 1990s.
Keywords: discursive institutionalism; post-structural discourse theory; institutions; dis-
course; institutional change
This article seeks to add to the growing contribution of discursive approaches to the study
of politics. More specifically, it looks at how post-structuralist discourse theory (PSDT) can
contribute to better explanations of institutional change. Discursive institutionalism (DI) is
an umbrella concept for a vast range of approaches to the study of institutions with
significant variations in their theoretical and methodological understanding of the relations
between ideas, discourses and institutions (Schmidt, 2010). Our starting point is a critique
of Vivien Schmidt’s (2008; 2009; 2010) valuable attempt to integrate a discursive perspec-
tive with other varieties of new institutionalism (NI).We focus on Schmidt’s works on DI
because of her particular concern with exploring the discursive foundations of DI and her
acknowledgement of the potential of discourse theory (including PSDT) to contribute to
the theorisation of processes of ideational change (Schmidt, 2010, pp. 14–5).
Central to Schmidt’s undertaking is the reclamation of ‘discourse’ as an important
analytical tool for the study of the relations between ideas and institutions. Schmidt notes
that mainstream political scientists have been reluctant to add ‘discourse’ to their consid-
eration of ideas because, as she puts it,‘it conjures the exaggerated visions of postmodernists
and post-structuralists who are assumed (often unfairly) to interpret “texts” without con-
texts and to understand reality as all words, whatever the deeds’ (Schmidt, 2008, pp. 304–5).
Contrary to these critics we agree with Schmidt’s suggestion that including a discursive
dimension into political analysis can make a useful contribution to the understanding of
processes of institutional change (Schmidt, 2010, p. 15). It is our view, however, that
Schmidt’s understanding of discourse and of its implications for the study of institutions
© 2012 The Authors. Political Studies © 2012 Political Studies Association
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F R A N C I S C O PA N I Z Z A A N D RO M I N A M I O R E L L I
results in a model of explanation of institutional change that does not properly address some
fundamental questions about the relations between power, politics and discourse that are
necessary to make change endogenous to her model.We further argue that while PSDT has
made an important contribution to the understanding of the discursive nature of political
practices, it has in turn failed fully to take on board the institutional dimension of politics,
resulting in a view of politics that is largely devoid of institutions. We conclude that an
integration of the insights of DI with those of PSDT allows for a more rounded analysis of
the discursive dimension of institutions and of the institutional dimension of politics, and
a better understanding of processes of institutional change.
The article is structured as follows: the first section examines some of the more common
criticisms of PSDT and clarifies PSDT’s arguments about the discursive nature of society.
The second and third sections look at the failures of DI and PSDT to integrate fully the
analysis of politics, power and institutions in explaining institutional change and suggest
ways by which they can be brought together. In the fourth section we use examples from
our own research to illustrate our arguments by analysing the relations between discourse
and institutions in two different institutional settings: the 2002 presidential electoral cam-
paign in Brazil (Panizza, 2004) and Argentina’s poverty reduction policies in the 1990s
(Miorelli, 2008).
Taking PSDT Seriously
Before critically examining Schmidt’s understanding of the relations between discourse,
power and institutional change it is necessary to dispel some commonly held misconcep-
tions about PSDT’s claims on the discursive nature of society. Postmodernism and post-
structuralism are extremely broad categories which are difficult to define. PSDT theory
emerged in the 1980s as a reaction against the structural determinism and economic
reductionism of certain versions of Marxism and against the methodological individualism
of much of modern social theory. The outcome of this enterprise has not been a coherent
set of well-defined theoretical concepts, analytical categories and methodological tools that
will fit neatly into a school of thought, but an open-ended research agenda that shares a
number of theoretical and methodological assumptions with other so-called constructivist
approaches to political analysis, including DI.1
At the core of PSDT is a relational conception of society. This approach was influenced
by the French structural linguist Ferdinand de Saussure’s relational theory of language.
Saussure (1983) argued that language is a system of formal differences in which the meaning
of a word is not determined by its reference to an underlying entity (the signified) but by
its relational placing in the web-like structure of language. Following the insights of
linguistic theory, PSDT sees society as a meaningful, discursively constructed, system of
differential relations between its constitutive elements. However, while in Saussure’s theory
of language the meaning of a word is fully determined by its relational location in the
structure of a given language, PSDT emphasises that social orders are never fully structured
but open to political interventions and dislocations that make it impossible to ground them
in an ultimate foundation, hence the post-structuralist label.
Given the linguistic roots of PSDT and its claims about the discursively constructed
nature of society, it is not difficult to understand its critics’ charge that, as Schmidt (2008,
© 2012 The Authors. Political Studies © 2012 Political Studies Association
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2013, 61(2)
TA K I N G D I S C O U R S E S E R I O U S LY
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p. 305) puts it, PSDT conceives ‘reality as all words’, that is, the accusation of idealism. The
claim, however, is based on a misrepresentation of PSDT’s argument about the discursive
nature of social relations. Post-structural discourse theorists reject the argument that in
stating that the realm of discourse is coextensive with that of society PSDT reduces
everything to thought and language. PSDT practitioners do not ignore the existence of a
reality outside our heads and external to our thoughts. Their argument is not that
everything is discursive or linguistic, but that for things to be intelligible they must exist as
part of a wider framework of meaning, that is, of a discourse (Derrida, 1988, p. 148;
Howarth, 2000; Torfing, 1999).
An example taken from Schmidt’s analysis of what is ‘material’ and what is ‘real’ will help
us to illustrate this point. Schmidt (2008, p. 318) uses Searle’s (1955) distinction between
brute facts, such as mountains, which are material because they exist regardless of whether or
not sentient (intentional) agents acknowledge their existence or have words for them, and
social facts, such as institutions, to make an important point. She notes that institutions are not
material because, as different from mountains, they do not exist without sentient agents.
However, she claims that institutions are nonetheless real in the sense that they constitute
interests and cause things to happen. PSDT would further argue that, while brute facts (such
as mountains) are out there and exist independently of whether we exist or not, socially
they are not just brute facts. Mountains are meaningful objects, whose material entity can
only be grasped by their inscription into certain frameworks of meaning (i.e. discourses). In
the case of a mountain, the discursive frames could range from the geological discourse of
its mineral properties to the geographical discourse of...
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